Amen

Like Kathleen Parker, writing in The Washington Post, I’ve found people to be mean-spirited about the demise of newspapers. Some seem clueless about how painful it has been for many journalists. Others seem to want to rub it in.

Yes, we know: Journalists are held in low esteem, below lawyers and politicians. Some deserve it; most do not. In other oddities, we seem to reserve special hatred for the best papers ---- the ones that do the expensive, labor-intensive reporting that keeps government in check and exposes corruption, sometimes even among their own kind.

Are papers sometimes wrong? Do some reporters embarrass the rest? Is bias a problem? Yes, yes and yes, of course. Journalists are not saints, but they do perform a valuable service for which the rewards are few


I did a commentary for my radio class that makes almost the same point.